Global adoption of Solstice™ Liquid Blowing Agent could save the equivalent of 60 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year

Brussels, October 3, 2011 – Honeywell (NYSE: HON) introduced a new liquid blowing agent in the company’s growing family of low-global-warming materials.

Solstice™ Liquid Blowing Agent can be used in a variety of insulation applications including spray-foam, foam insulating panels and refrigerator insulation. Use of the new material can make refrigerators up to 10 to 12 percent more energy efficient than those insulated by hydrocarbon-blown foam, and more than 2 percent more energy efficient than refrigerators containing today’s most widely-used insulating agent, HFC-245fa. In residential and commercial building spray-applied insulating foam, Solstice Liquid Blowing Agent provides a 5 percent improvement in thermal insulation value over HFC-245fa-based spray foam.

Because of these energy efficiency benefits, if fully adopted globally, Solstice Liquid Blowing Agent could save approximately 60 million metric tons per year of carbon dioxide equivalent, which is comparable to eliminating carbon dioxide emissions from more than 11.8 million cars every year.*

“Honeywell’s new Solstice Liquid Blowing Agent excels in the four dimensions that are most important to blowing agent users: energy efficiency performance, environmental impact, safety in use, and cost-effectiveness,” said Terrence Hahn, vice president and general manager for Honeywell Fluorine Products. “We are pleased to announce this expansion of our Solstice family of low-global-warming-potential products, which is helping customers around the world lower their carbon footprint while maximizing end-product performance.”

Solstice Liquid Blowing Agent, which was previously called HBA-2, has an extremely short atmospheric lifetime of approximately 26 days. This gives the product its superior properties – it has an ultra-low global warming potential (GWP) of less than 7 and has no impact on ozone layer depletion.

Solstice Liquid Blowing Agent’s GWP is a more than 99 percent improvement over the products it can replace, including HCFC-141b (which has a GWP of 725), HFC-365mfc (which has a GWP of 794) and HFC-245fa (which has a GWP of 1,030).

Because Solstice Liquid Blowing Agent is non-flammable, it does not require expensive explosion-proof equipment and handling, unlike hydrocarbon alternatives. It is also a near drop-in replacement for today’s most commonly used blowing agents.

Honeywell’s Solstice family of products are based on hydrofluoro-olefin technology and offer similar or improved performance when compared with today's most widely used stationary and mobile refrigerants, blowing agents and aerosol propellants. The products have dramatically reduced GWPs compared with today’s widely used fluorocarbons.

The family includes Solstice Mobile Air-Conditioning Refrigerant, which is being broadly adopted by the automotive industry for use as a refrigerant in car air-conditioning systems, Solstice Gas Blowing Agent, which is being used in extruded polystyrene board applications, and Solstice Propellant for aerosols.

Solstice technology benefits society through superior energy efficiency performance in cooling and insulating applications. By reducing fuel consumption, these materials directly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from heating, cooling and electrical power generation, and are cost-effective for the end user compared with alternatives.